1891.] Document No. 23. 9
shall be made to pay their just proportion of the public
taxes.
It will be noticed that this company made investments of
similar character and for similar purposes in the Durham
and Northern Railroad Company, the Georgia, Carolina and
Northern Railroad Company, and some other smaller branch
roads.
Your committee call attention to the fact, that after the
Supreme Court, in the case referred to, had decided that the
preferred stock held by the company in the Raleigh and
Augusta Air-Line Railroad Company was liable to taxation,
the company, under an act passed by the General Assembly,
exchanged its stock for the mortgage bonds of the company,
upon which no taxes have ever been paid.
Your committee call the attention of the General Assem-bly
to the evidence of the witnesses mentioned, for fuller
information in regard to this company and to the matters
connected with it.
THE SEA-BOARD AND ROANOKE RAILROAD COMPANY.
This corporation was formed by the consolidation if the
Roanoke Railroad Company and the Sea-board and Roanoke
Railroad Company. (See Chapter 83, Laws of 1848-9, and
Chapter 143 of 1852.)
The provision exempting this company from taxation is
found in Section 24 of Chapter 87, Laws of 1840-7, being
the original charter of the Roanoke Railroad Company, and
is as follows
:
"That all machines, wagons, vehicles and carriages, pur-chased
as aforesaid with the funds of the company, or
engaged in the business of transportation on said railroad,
and all the works of the said company constructed, or prop-erty
acquired under the authority of this act, and all profits
which shall accrue from the same, shall be invested in the
respective stockholders of the company forever in propor-